Everything Unraveled
by boring the goose
Summary: Connor delivers his letter.


**Everything Unraveled**

_Connor delivers his letter._

_Disclaimer: Neal Shusterman wrote Unwind. Not me._

Mrs. Lassiter was in the kitchen when the doorbell rang.

It was the seventeenth of August, two days before her son Alex's birthday. He was turning eighteen. And while Mrs. Lassiter was by no means a cook, she had a tradition of making her sons, no, _son_ a homemade cake for his birthday. It wasn't really the cake's preparation that threw her off. That was easy enough. But Mrs. Lassiter had a problem with controlling the oven. No matter how long she left a cake in there, it always seemed to burn. But this year, she was determined to make it correctly. It would her last chance to cook the damn thing right before he went off on his own.

She was staring at the oven, making sure the cake didn't spontaneously combust, when the familiar chime of the doorbell sounded overhead.

Mrs. Lassiter was a lot of things, but she wasn't a recluse. "I'm coming!" she called through the empty house. After checking the time on the oven (she had thirty minutes to spare. Surely it wouldn't take that long to answer the door), she tip-toed across the house and to the front door. "Just a second!"

The door swung wide when she answered it, revealing a scarred young man in worn down clothes. He had dark shaggy hair that almost covered his brown eyes that didn't quite match. He was tall, at least six feet tall and needed a shave. With sun-browned skin and clearly defined muscles, Mrs. Lassiter couldn't help but notice how attractive the man was. Too young for her, certainly, but still a nice catch for whoever did find him.

"Hello," she said brightly. "Who might you be?"

For whatever reason, the man scowled at her cheerfulness, as if it personally offended him. "No one. That is," he rubbed his right arm roughly, focusing on the bicep in particular, "no one you'll remember."

The woman in the doorway was confused, and a bit nervous. She was home alone, and crime had become more and more common since the unwind age was lowered. Seventeen year olds, finally freed from the restrictive bonds of their behavior, ran around jumping people for fun. They weren't yet eighteen, so they couldn't be tried as adults. For a whole year, they were free to do whatever they pleased. And though this man hardly looked like a testosterone-fueled teenager, it had been creeping through the news that adults were getting in on the action as well.

Still, because she was a good hostess, Mrs. Lassiter did not shut the door immediately. Instead, she tried to ease out of the conversation in a way that wouldn't provoke a confrontation. "Well, if you're quite done, I have a cake in the oven…"

With a beefy, muscled hand, the man stopped the door from closing. "How old is Alex?"

Her brown eyes wide, Mrs. Lassiter pushed against the door. It didn't budge. If this man knew about Alex, he'd know about other things. Like her other son, the one she hadn't seen in years and hadn't thought about in months. The one who ran away from the unwind facility—the fate she and her husband condemned him to.

Connor.

Futilely, she tried to deny it. "I don't know what you're talking about," her voice squeaked in fear. "I live here by myself. This cake is for a bake sale down at the school…"

The man shook his head, and looked her straight in the eyes. His wounds were horrible, like burns that'd never heal. But behind the scars, the eyes that didn't quite match looked desperate. They looked mad with need; for what she didn't know. "How old is Alex?" he repeated slowly.

"Eighteen on Wednesday," she whispered breathlessly.

"Where is he now?" Again, she thought about lying, but the man looked lost; lost and confused.

"School," she replied softly. "He'll be there until four this afternoon."

The man nodded solidly. "And Mr. Lassiter?"

She paused. This man wasn't all-knowing after all. After a quick moment's thought, she answered. "Work. He, um, won't be coming home for a while."

Again the man nodded. "Could you give this to him?" He reached into his coat pocket and produced an envelope stuffed to the brim with who knows what. "I'd tell you to read it together, but I know you won't." He slid it into her waiting hands. The motion wasn't familiar. Nothing about this man was familiar. But he spoke to her with a sense of _knowing_, like he'd lived with her all his life. Her hands shaking, she tucked the letter away.

"I think you should go now, young man," she mumbled softly. "I really need to get back to my cake."

The man nodded, a smile crossing his distorted features. "Of course. Don't let the oven take advantage of you this time, Mrs. Lassiter."

Unwittingly, she grinned. "Never."

And then he slid away, like saltwater from the sandy beach. Mrs. Lassiter went back to her life, contemplating who the young man was and what could possibly be concealed in the letter. Untrue to the man's predictions, she didn't open the letter right away. She didn't wait for her husband to come home either, since he hadn't come home for months after his car accident. No. Instead, she left it on the shelf to collect dust over the years. Not until her granddaughter pulled it down from the dresser she supposedly couldn't reach did Mrs. Lassiter glance at the envelope again. While her family sat down to a perfectly baked cake for little Mary's birthday, Mrs. Lassiter read through the faded blue ink.

Connor.

And, just like her eldest son had told her, Mrs. Lassiter didn't remember his face.


End file.
